Lo único más poderoso que el odio es el amor.
No explosion. No dramatic descent from the stadium rafters. No surprise trap door entrance. The Super Bowl LX halftime show opened somewhere else entirely — a sugarcane plantation lit by a hot sun. A young man stood there dressed in white, a guitar resting gently on his ever-so-slightly bent knee, a pava atop his head. He smiled into the camera like he was letting us in on a secret:
“¡Qué rico es ser latino!”
Then the opening beats of “Tití Me Preguntó” rang out, and the performance began. The camera found Bad Bunny on the turf of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, with the scenery around him resembling much of the field first shown. Surrounded by sugar cane and dancers clad in all-white with pavas to match, Bad Bunny stood out, his back turned, dressed in a white football jersey reading “Ocasio 64,” a number nodding to his uncle’s birth year.
Football in hand, Ocasio turned around and danced through a fully constructed Puerto Rican town: a coco frío vendor, tíos hunched over a domino table, chisme unfolding at the nail salon, a jeweler, and even a piraguero whose syrups bore the Puerto Rican, Mexican, Colombian, and Spanish flags. The neighborhood was just the first of many vignettes of Latin culture that would appear throughout the thirteen-minute performance.
From “Tití Me Preguntó,” through “Yo perreo sola” and “Safaera,” Bad Bunny fulfilled the promise he teased in the show’s trailer: “The world will dance.” He stood on the roof of a pink casita, the same one that adorned the stage at his 30-show residency in San Juan, while dancers flooded the turf and faces from every corner of pop culture, Latine or otherwise, crowded the porch below him.
The momentum carried forward, song after song, until the instantly recognizable first beats of “EoO” played. It was hard to miss just how diverse Benito’s dancers were. Dancers of every race surrounded the white pickup truck in the middle of the field, moving as one. But most striking was the gay couple that the performance put center stage. For a brief moment, somewhere over 100 million Americans watched as two men danced together openly, both as a reminder that queerness and Latinidad are not mutually exclusive, and as a symbol of freedom in a time of intense fear.
One of the biggest shocks of the night was certainly Lady Gaga’s surprise guest appearance. As the graceful strings of “MONACO” faded out, the camera panned up to reveal a real-life wedding unfolding on the field. Lady Gaga, dressed in a custom Luar dress designed by Dominican-American Raul López, sang a Latin-inspired version of “Die With a Smile” as the ceremony played out.
The symbolism was deliberate. The powder blue of her dress echoed that of the original Puerto Rican flag, pinned with a Flor de Maga brooch, the island’s national flower. Still, her being there was bound to spark debate. In a performance so deeply rooted in Puerto Rican and Latine identity, the choice to place a white, non-Latin pop star at the center of such a culturally specific moment was, for some, odd or even uncomfortable. This is especially true, considering her choice of song — “Die With A Smile” — is co-credited to Bruno Mars, a singer of Puerto Rican descent, who was absent from the performance.
Yet, Gaga’s presence was deliberate. She was not a concession — not a “here, damn” for those who complained about the absence of English from the performance nor a distraction from the Latin artists who dominated the show. Instead, Gaga was there to lend her voice in service of a story that was not hers but that she had the power to amplify. In a show built to emphasize that love is the answer, that reinforcing culture divisions does not foster unity, and that solidarity does not require sameness, Lady Gaga was a reminder that community is not weakened by difference and that Latin communities need as many allies and as much support as possible right now. Our voices are strengthened by those willing to stand with us, visibly and intentionally, as the whole world watches.
During “BAILE INoLVIDABLE,” the dancing slips into something that’s spontaneous and natural, reminiscent of the kind of dancing you might expect at a wedding. Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga found themselves in the middle of it, smiling and dancing, the image of pure joy. The wedding scene was complete, right down to the child asleep across three chairs (ask any Latine person you know; this probably gave them a chuckle).
“NUEVAYoL” followed, unfolding amidst a backdrop that mirrored Puerto Rican neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with a hair braider, a barber shop, and a bodega with a glowing sign reading “We Accept EBT.” And just in case the Nuyorican community needed further confirmation that this moment of unbridled representation was for them, Bad Bunny stopped his singing to accept a shot from Toñita, the owner of Caribbean Social Club located in the once densely Hispanic neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The celebration carried on until the energy softened. On an old television set, a clip played of Bad Bunny accepting the Grammy for Album of the Year, making “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” the first fully Spanish-language album to win the award. Seated in front of the TV was a young boy, dressed in khaki pants with his striped shirt neatly tucked in, his parents at either of his shoulders. Bad Bunny approached him, knelt down, and placed the Grammy in his hands, leaning close to say, “Cree siempre a ti” — always believe in yourself.
Almost immediately, social media erupted with speculation that the young boy was Liam Conejo Ramos, the five year old whose abduction and detention by ICE had recently captured national attention. This rumor was quickly debunked: the young boy was likely meant to stand in for a younger Bad Bunny or, more broadly, young Latine children around the world. Yet this reaction, intentional or not, is telling. Whether as a stand-in for the many children harmed by the system, a reflection of the artist himself, or a symbol for future generations, the Grammy was a promise to young people who rarely see themselves represented, or at least represented positively. Bad Bunny spoke straight to the belief that our stories, our languages, and our culture are equally deserving of representation as anyone else’s.
From this hopeful moment, Bad Bunny transitioned to “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), a song that celebrates Puerto Rican culture while critiquing the region’s political corruption, gentrification, and the chronic power outages the island has experienced since Hurricane Maria in 2017. From the top of a broken power line, Bad Bunny sang out:
“Ahora, todos quieren ser latino, no /
Pero les falta sazón, batería y reggaetón”
(“Today, everyone wants to be Latino /
But they lack seasoning (rhythm), drums, and reggaetón”)
The line lands as both a moment of intense pride and a sharp reminder that culture can not be borrowed or tried on without understanding the conditions that led to its emergence. It was also the angriest that Bad Bunny allowed himself to get. For many, it may have seemed cathartic to get in front of a hundred million people and explicitly critique the government that has hurt and endangered so many of his people, but even here, Bad Bunny resisted the urge to linger in his rage. The critique of both the Puerto Rican government and the growing global inclination to borrow from Latin culture for the sake of online clout is unmistakable, but nonetheless brief. Rather than allowing himself to be consumed by anger, Bad Bunny weaved his critique into the larger story he had been telling all night: love is more powerful than hate. Anger is justified, but it is not the destination.
I had the great privilege of watching the halftime show in the IC Dome during a watchparty hosted by ENLACE. Surrounded by a majority Latine crowd, the excitement in the room was palpable. For many of us, the performance spoke directly to the culture we were raised in — a celebration of our often overlooked world. Seeing those moments placed on a national stage, held up with pride and joy, felt deeply personal. So when, at the end of the performance, Bad Bunny shouted “God Bless América” and named all the countries making up North, South, and Central America, there was not a dry eye in the room.
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador, Brasil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Panamá, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Cuba, República Dominicana, Jamaica, Haití, United States, Canadá y Puerto Rico.
Together, We Are America.
